Cognitive Strategy Instruction - Research Paper Example

? Cognitive Strategy Instruction Lecturer Cognitive Strategy Instruction Introduction One of the major challenges that teachers face currently with students academically struggling is how to offer access to the general curriculum. For most of the students with difficulties in cognitive acquisition, cognitive notation is usually challenging. Because the interpretation of symbols to derive meaning is a crucial part of student education, it is pivotal for educators to find relevant ways of achieving this objective. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 and the NO Child Left Behind Act of 2001 support the assertion that all including those with disabilities, children should have access to a similar curriculum. In addition, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics of 2000 backs offering all the youths equal access to the concepts of mathematics (Montague & Jitendra, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the cognitive strategy instruction as it relates to teaching math to adolescent students with mild learning disabilities. Students with mild learning disabilities generally often have difficulties in achieving the standards of academic content and excelling in the assessments. Particularly, students with mild learning disabilities usually have difficulties with algebraic reasoning, mathematics basic skills, and problem solving skills. Majority of these students struggle with the means of approaching mathematics problems, carrying out selected plans, and making effective decisions. An effective approach to aid adolescent students with mild learning disabilities in accessing challenging concepts of mathematics is to offer strategy instruction (Montague & Jitendra, 2009). This paper therefore defines cognitive strategy instructions, identifies significant features of effective cognitive strategies, and identifies key contents necessary for instructing adolescent students with mild learning disabilities in the use of the cognitive strategy. Nevertheless, the paper will provide an example for the application of cognitive strategy instruction for teaching math and offer considerations when applying cognitive strategy instruction in math classes. A cognitive strategy refers to plan that specifies the sequence of the required actions and consists of essential rules and guidelines that are related to making effective decisions during the process of solving problems. Some of the features of cognitive strategy instruction that make such strategies effective for adolescent students with mild learning disabilities include: devices of memory that help the students master the strategy; steps of the strategy using common words and are stated concisely and simply beginning with action verbs in order to enhance involvement and participation of students; steps of strategy are appropriately sequenced and lead to the intended outcome; steps of the strategy using prompts in order to get students apply their cognitive abilities; and metacognitive strategies using prompts in order to monitor performance of problem solving (Ruya, 2009). There are various such cognitive strategy instructions such as evidence based practice and STAR as will be explained in this paper. These cognitive strategy instructions are instructional methods that have been applied in multiple tasks in the academics, and have previously provided a way for educators to facilitate student independence competence across secondary, elementary and post secondary settings. Cognitive strategy instruction entails a strong base of evidence and employs systematic and explicit procedures of instructions that have extensively been validated and can be used flexibly. Cognitive strategy instruction as an instructional approach emphasizes the development of processes and skills of thinking as a way to promote learning. For example, the evidence based practice strategy enables students with mild learning disabilities to learn spelling words initially unknown to them and allow them to use techniques of self correction. Cognitive strategy instruction is therefore effective particularly for students with mild learning disabilities. Evidence shows that students actively involved in the process of education have better motivation, retention and overall attitudes in learning. Cognitive strategy instruction is also flexible and can be applied in combination with distinct techniques of self regulation. These self regulation techniques need to be explicitly taught and combined in memorizing and modeling and supporting stages of independent performance (Reid & Lienemann, 2006). In an over view of how to use evidence based practice strategy, the strategy is used in various ways. There are three specific things that a teacher will need to have in mind when using this cognitive strategy instruction: planning, sentence generation and revising. This cognitive strategy instruction was previously designed and founded on 2 effective models of instructions: self regulated strategy development and cognitive strategy instruction in writing. In using evidence based practice cognitive strategy in teaching math, a teacher goes through various steps: planning, setting goals based on math tasks, generating math content and organizing using the knowledge of math structure; production, transcription mechanics; revision, evaluating math concepts using extensive criteria and developing ideas; and extensive self regulation, selecting and monitoring strategies. This method is important and beneficial to adolescent students with mild learning disabilities in relation to learning math, because it allows all such students to be more self-reliant, strategic, and more productive in their education endeavors (Mark, 2008). Another example of a cognitive strategy instruction that has been validated empirically and helps students recall the steps sequentially from the common used words and aid them in solving and interpreting math problems involving numbers of integers is the STAR method. STAR is an acronym for Search the word problem, Translate the problem, Answer the problem and Review the solution. This strategy instruction includes teaching strategies that are both efficient and effective. The retention and learning by students is facilitated through a systematic use of effective variables of teaching. That is, some particular variables of teaching such as teacher presentations, review, modeling, guided practice, feedback, independent practice, and cumulative review, are both efficient and effective for teaching math to adolescent students with mild learning disabilities (Chard, 2009). The STAR strategy incorporates initially noted features of strategy and effective components of teaching in order to help teach math effectively and efficiently. Nevertheless, this strategy incorporates semi concrete and concrete abstract instructional sequences that advances gradually to abstract ideas that use progression such as: concrete stage, including a 3 dimensional representation where students are able to manipulate objects in order to represents the problems and concepts of math; semi concrete stage, including a 2 dimensional representation in which students draw images and pictures of the problems and concepts of math; and abstract stage, where students represent the math problem with numerical symbols (Mark, 2008). In this STAR strategy, before the commencement of the lesson, the teacher pretests students to ensure that the students have the prerequisite vocabulary and skills that are relevant to the appropriate concept and problem of math, and to ensure that the strategy is actually needed. The teacher then continues to introduce the strategy and explain what this strategy is as well as the rationale for learning particular instructional strategy and when and where to apply the strategy. After this description, the teacher inquires from the students the explanation of the purpose of the strategy and asks them to give a description of how it will assist them in solving math problems and the mechanism of use. The students are expected to memorize the steps of this mnemonic STAR strategy and the related steps in order to enable easy recall through the use of rapid rehearsal. This technique of rehearsal includes first recalling on students individually and letting them state the steps of the strategy, and then repeat the process with the other students in class. This rehearsal then comes faster as the students become more familiar with the steps and minimally relies on the prompts given by the teacher (Reid & Lienemann, 2006). When using the STAR cognitive strategy instruction, it is recommended that certain things be kept in mind during a math class. Considerations will be made to the following when using STAR strategy: Recognition of student behavioral and cognitive characteristics and preferences: when using strategy instruction, teachers should be aware of the student preferences and characteristics. For example, some individual students prefer highlighting important words and reading the word problems loudly. Others may like silently reading the problem and underlining them. Equally significant is the student behavioral characteristics as well as their self esteem in motivation and math. For example, students with low math motivation may need additional support to facilitate active engagement. This may be done by creating math contracts with individual students with specific target math objectives and enhancing student participation by carrying out student led discussion applying the strategy (Montague & Jitendra, 2009) Enhancing strategy instruction individualization: teachers need to encourage students to individualize the strategy instruction use in math classes through adopting a strategy already learned in class. For instance, as the STAR strategy processes become automatic to the students, remembering the initial steps such as “search the word problem” prompts students to study carefully the problem and initiate translation to math concepts and form (Montague & Jitendra, 2009). Generalization of the program: it is essential that both general and special education math teachers for maintaining similar structure with different lines and incorporating complex problems than the ones in the set of instruction of the strategy instruction math strategies so as to enhance application and retention of the use of strategy. For example, maintaining similar structure with different lines can be incorporated for program generalization in addition to the math problems used in the set of instructions. Again in incorporating more complex problems than taught previously in the set of instructions encourages students to master more concepts and math problems. Nevertheless, the STAR strategy can be generalized generally across all math topics (Chard, 2009). In an example of the application of the STAR strategy in class, the teacher provides a prior strategy organizer in order to help: relate earlier mastered information in the new math lesson, provide rationale for learning new things, and state the new information that is to be presented in class. For example, yesterday we used a strategy of problem solving, STAR, with words involving integers, but today we will use the same strategy to draw images and pictures in order to demonstrate the math problems. The next step is for the teacher to provide a model of the steps of the strategy. In this stage, the teacher thinks aloud as he or she models the application of the strategy with the math problems targeted. The teacher then reviews the steps and notes the responses on a structured sheet as the students write theirs on their own worksheets. The teacher then involves the students via asking questions in modeling more math problems. The teacher goes through the entire processes of the STAR with the students and then asks them to do the same individually (Reid & Lienemann, 2006). The next step is providing a guided practice to the students. The teacher offers various opportunities for the students to keep practicing problem solving with math problems using their structured worksheets. This guidance is faded gradually up to the point where students can perform the tasks with very minimal teacher prompts or written prompts. After this stage, the teacher now provides independent student practice. At this stage, students are now allowed to perform additional math problems with not prompts from the teacher or any assistance. The teacher monitors the performance of individual students. The next stage is feedback and correction. The teacher provides both positive and corrective feedback to the students as he or she monitors the performance of the students through guidelines such as: documenting the performance of students in terms of the correct percentage, checking for the error patterns, teaches again where necessary and offers additional math problems for the students to practice, and finally closes the lesson with a positive feedback. Finally, the teacher engages in program for generalization. The teacher offers a cumulative review of math problems for maintenance over time and offer opportunities for students to use and generalize the strategy to the other math problems (Chard, 2009). Conclusions In summary, students with learning disabilities in math problems usually experience difficulties in deciding on how to give math word problems an approach, carrying out particular plans, and making procedural decisions effectively. Cognitive strategy instruction is therefore an effective method of helping adolescent students with mild learning disabilities in math classes and in completing challenging math concepts. In order to support teachers with the use of math strategies, this paper defined and discussed cognitive strategy instruction, provided important characteristics of effective math strategies, and gave an example of a cognitive strategy instruction (STAR and evidence based practice) relating to teaching adolescent students with mild learning disabilities math. References Montague, M., & Jitendra. A. K. (Eds.). (2009). Teaching mathematics to middle school students with learning difficulties. New York: Guilford Press. Ruya. Guzel (2009). Modified cognitive strategy instruction: an expository writing strategy. Intervention in school & clinic, Vol 44, 10-24 Reid, R., & Lienemann, T. O. (2006). Strategy instruction for students with learning disabilities. New York: Guilford Press. Mark W. (2008). Cognitive strategy instruction for adolescents: what we know about the promise, what we don’t know about the potential. http://www.hepg.org/her/abstract/642 Chard, D. J. (2009). Repeated reading interventions for students with learning disabilities: Status of the evidence. Exceptional Children, 75, 263-284. Read More